were two ladies at the table, one of venerable aspect, with short,
white curls, held from her face by side-combs, a modish breakfast-cap,
and a morning-gown of thin gray silk. The other was young enough to be
her daughter, as indeed she was, dressed in deep mourning. Rising
instantly from her place as hostess behind the silver service, she
extended her hand to the stranger.

"Mr. Gordon, is it not? I was afraid you would arrive during the night.
Mercy! So uncomfortable! How good of you to come--yes, indeed."

She sank into her chair again, pressing her black-bordered handkerchief
to her dark eyes, which seemed to Gordon singularly dry, round, and
glossy--suggestive of chestnuts, in fact. "So good of you to come," she
repeated, "to the house of mourning! Very few people have any talent for
woe, Mr. Gordon. These rooms have housed many guests, but not to weep
with us. The stricken deer must weep alone."

She fell to hysterical sobbing, which her mother interrupted by a
remonstrant "My dear, my dear!" A blond young man with a florid cheek
and a laughing blue eye, who sat in an easy posture at the foot of the
table, aided the diversion of interest. "Won't you introduce me, Mrs.
Keene?--or must I take the opportunity to tell Mr. Gordon that I am Dr.
Rigdon, very much at his service."

"Mercy! yes, yes, indeed!" Mrs. Keene acceded as the two young men shook
hands; then, evidently perturbed by her lack of ceremony, she exclaimed
pettishly, "Where is Geraldine? She always sees to it that everybody
knows everybody, and that everybody is served at a reception or a tea. I
never have to think of such things if _she_ is in the house."

The allusions seemed to Gordon a bit incongruous with the recent heavy
affliction of the household. The accuracy with which the waves of red
hair, of a rich tint that suggested chemicals, undulated about the brow
of the widow, the art with which the mourning-gown brought out all the
best points and subdued the defects of a somewhat clumsy figure, the
suspicion of a cosmetic's aid in a dark line, scarcely perceptible yet
amply effective, under the prominent eyes, all contributed to the
determination of a lady of forty-five years of age to look thirty.

"Geraldine is always late for breakfast, but surely she ought to be down
by this time," Mrs. Brinn said, with as much acrimony as a mild old lady
could well compass.

"Oh, Geraldine reads half the night," explained Mrs. Keene. "Such an
injurious